


A little give and take

by belmanoir



Series: Flying from the blast [13]
Category: Captain America (2011), The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Gen, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-25
Updated: 2012-07-25
Packaged: 2017-11-10 17:50:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve meets with Loki at S.H.I.E.L.D. He's not really sure what he wants to hear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A little give and take

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Sonia. Title from "New York State of Mind" by Billy Joel.
> 
> **Warnings:** suicidal thoughts.

When they walk into the holding area, Loki is sitting on a bare mattress reading a battered _Complete Works of Shakespeare_. The book's too heavy to be wieldy even for a superhuman; he shifts it awkwardly on his knees. Between that and his delicate features, he looks like a spoiled Ivy Leaguer. It's disturbing. Steve wonders what the Asgardian equivalent of polo is, and if they even have poor people up there.

Loki looks up, setting the book aside and rising with less grace than Steve's ever seen him do anything. The length of golden chain between his wrists breaks the illusion of normality. 

His eyes go to Thor, at Steve's right. His features twist with revulsion. Steve turns his head and catches a look of desperate, pleading longing on Thor's face. He looks away.

"Everybody play nice," Tony says, laying his hand casually on the glass since he can't put it on Loki's shoulder or arm. Steve can't believe how comfortable Tony's gotten with this psycho. Is he the only one who remembers what Loki did? 

He can't forget the gleeful look on Loki's face when he took aim at that old man. He's a born bully if there ever was one. Probably the kind of kid who put puppies in a trashcan to make them fight.

"I want to talk to him alone," Steve says. "No guards."

"Out of the question," Agent Coulson says. 

Bruce was right. S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't going to refuse when he asked to see Loki, but they aren't happy he's here. They don't like the Avengers talking to each other and making plans without Nick Fury or someone who answers to him in the room. He's going to have to keep an eye on Clint and Natasha, see how far their loyalty to Fury goes.

"You let him talk to Nicole Trager alone," Steve says. "You think I'm weaker, or just less expendable?"

"Sorry, Captain." Coulson doesn't look sorry about anything except having to be the bad guy in front of his hero. "We can't risk it. Even with the manacles, he's got some powers that could be dangerous. Three guards in here, and Thor and Mr. Stark and I are outside the door with reinforcements. If he does anything that alarms you, you hit the panic button." He points to a little red button on the wall by the door.

Steve doesn't really want S.H.I.E.L.D. listening, but it's not an unreasonable position. They've got cameras anyway. He nods and waits while everyone files out, Thor watching Loki over his shoulder as he goes. "Brother--" He cuts himself off and shuts the door behind him. Not quietly. Steve's never seen Thor do anything quietly. Maybe he's hard of hearing. It would explain a lot. 

Steve sticks his hands in his pockets. "Well, here I am."

Loki raises his eyebrows, just a hair. His face is like a cartoon: sharply and economically drawn, the light and dark elements in perfect balance. Too good to be true. Steve doesn't trust it. "And here am I."

"Explain something to me. Why'd you turn yourself in if you were just going to let Stark bail you out?"

Loki's lips thin. Then he laughs, a smug laugh that sets Steve's teeth on edge. "I lost my taste for life on the lam. And then, lying is so painful to me."

Steve's mouth tightens. "Your brother just begged me to help you with tears in his eyes, and you can't even be bothered to be civil." 

For a moment, Loki's face is a tight mask of anger. His eyes snap to the door--Thor's on the other side--and back. Steve feels a rush of adrenaline, and Loki's eyes gleam as he smiles. "Look at you! Raring for a fight. I'll tell you a secret: so am I. Nicole says it's because a fight brings my outer reality in line with my inner reality. If I stop seeing life as a competition, it will stop being one."

Steve's fist clenches at his side. Damn Loki anyway, and damn Banner for talking him into this. What did he expect? Sensible conversation?

"She believes that I have that much power," Loki continues. "That every man is a god who may fashion the world to his liking. But we know better, don't we?"

He and Loki have _nothing_ in common. Every fight he ever started as a kid is boiling up his throat: _You don't know a damn thing about me!_ But he can't punch Loki. He can't punch anyone anymore without knocking them through the wall, and he doesn't know what the hell else to do.

"You were right." Loki's eyes brim with delight at having thwarted Steve. "I concede utterly. I don't deserve what I have. I don't deserve Thor. I never have. And yet...I have him."

Steve's heart contracts with mortification and choking frustration. Great. Loki knows he's jealous. He'll love holding that over Steve's head.

_It is an adventure, and I have my brother to share it with,_ Thor said. It couldn't have been a total lie. This would feel like an adventure if Bucky was here. Steve can still see his look of wonder at Stark's flying car. He'd be disgusted if he knew Steve was holed up in his apartment instead of exploring the future. 

Steve always thought that if he didn't feel tired and sick all the time, he'd want to do all that stuff other people did: chat up girls on the subway and go to the pool hall and dance and ride all the rides at Coney Island. Turns out he's just a misanthrope.

He brings his focus back to Loki. "So what do you want to do once you're out? Planning to join the team?" He tries not to grimace.

Loki laughs again. "That indignity at least will be spared you."

"Don't want to stick your neck out if there's nothing in it for you?"

Loki's eyes glint. "To kill another person is to kill part of oneself."

Steve actually kind of believes that. He doesn't like hearing it from Loki, though. "You got anything left in there?"

The smile doesn't falter. It wriggles like a caterpillar for a second, though. "My bounty is as boundless as the sea; the more I give, the more I have."

At least Loki hasn't been reading _Othello._ Iago would give him ideas. "That's about love."

"Love and murder have never been strangers," Loki says, and it reminds Steve that he tried to kill Thor a couple times, too. He doesn't even try to keep the disgust off his face. Loki laughs again. Steve doesn't get what's funny. "I need some distance in my relationship with death."

Steve has no idea what he means, and he doesn't really care.

Loki puts a sleek hand flat on the glass. There's something unpleasantly inviting in the gesture. "We're not so different, you and I," he says, as if he's quoting something. A private joke with someone else. Steve wants to spit the taste of the words out. "Oh, not in our hearts," Loki says. "I'm sure yours is pure."

Steve snorts. "It's not about what's in your heart. It's about what you do. You could be a nice guy too if you felt like making the effort."

Loki tilts his head, looking startled. "Don't hold your breath," he says finally.

"I wasn't planning to." Steve stifles the urge to check his watch. Is this meeting going _anywhere?_

"What have you done since you awakened from your long slumber?" Loki asks with elaborate curiously. "Besides destroying several hundred punching bags?"

"Heard that from Agent Barton, did you?"

There's a moment of stillness. Loki's eyes meet his, green and wide. Is it guilt in his face? Nostalgia for the good old days of mind control? Or did he just lose his train of thought?

"I helped stop you," Steve points out.

Loki leans in close to the glass, back on track. "You thought it was over, didn't you? You put her in the water with a sense of overwhelming relief. And how here you are, untold years of unpleasant struggle ahead of you. After all, you might live forever. It's exhausting, isn't it? When you could have been _done._ "

For a second Steve is caught. Loki's right. He hates that Loki knows anything about him. Especially that. "If you're trying to talk me into killing myself, it's not going to work."

Loki laughs again, that sudden shift from somber stillness to gleaming amusement. He's starting to remind Steve of Mrs. Danvers. It's kind of embarrassing. "I'm not. I know how you feel."

Steve has nothing to say to that.

"Nicole says you can't wait to wake up happy." Loki's voice is full of false concern. "You have to make an effort to do things that will make you happy."

She said that to Steve too, during their sessions together--mandatory psychological assessments, to see if he came out of the ice all there. She also told him he needed "closure." He ignored her.

After Steve's mom died, Bucky used to breeze in like how Steve imagined country air, fresh and bracing, and say, _No wonder you can't breathe. Open the window, for Christ's sake. Come on, the world's not going to come to you,_ and then he'd drag him out on some double date Steve never enjoyed.

It hits Steve that no one is going to do that for him this time. It hits him hard, like a fist in his stomach. 

_Bucky._

This was supposed to get better. Time was supposed to heal it.

Loki is watching him like he's a science experiment.

What's he even doing here? What does he want Loki to say? He's looking for some kind of closure, something that will help him make a decision, but there's nothing in this room except what he already knew: Loki's not hysterically homicidal at the moment, just a Grade-A asshole. 

He's never going to get any god-damn closure for any of it. It's not going to get better. He's been waiting around like maybe if he did it long enough, Bucky would show up from wherever he's been to chew him out about it. Even though that's impossible, he's reluctant to let go of it. He's not ready to admit that this is his life now.

But it is, and he's got two choices: shoot himself, or get on with it. 

"We're done here," he says.

Loki's lips part, his eyes going to the door like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Steve realizes that he knows Tony and Thor are going to be disappointed in him. It's ridiculous. Thor and Loki are ancient Norse gods and they make Steve feel old. 

"I'm going to talk it over with the team," Steve says. "But probably we'll try to work something out with S.H.I.E.L.D. for you. Are you willing to make a public apology?"

Loki flushes. He starts forward and almost hits his face on the glass. "Yes," he says. "I--what?"

Steve can't stand to be here for another second. He can't watch Loki and Thor and Tony celebrate. He spins and heads out the door. "I'm in," he tells Tony. "How soon do you think we can organize a team meeting?"

Tony beams, and Thor wrings his hand. 

"I'll call Clint and Natasha," Tony says. "We'll have to fit it into their work schedules." He says _work schedule_ as if it's a filthy habit he wishes they'd quit. "Soon."

He steels himself. _The world isn't going to come to you._ "Maybe we could all go out after. Hit Coney Island."

"Sure thing," Tony says. "Hey, did you know Clint's banned from every arcade? So I'm relying on you to win me a giant stuffed animal." His hands descend on Steve, one on his arm and one on his back. "You're a mensch, Rogers. You won't regret this."

"Thank you." The relief on Thor's face is too much to look at, his voice so heavy with emotion Steve shrinks back. His skin crawls with distasteful jealousy. What's Loki done to be so beloved?

_Tony would be just as upset if S.H.I.E.L.D. were keeping you in a glass box,_ Bruce told him, but he finds it hard to believe.

###

The note's in the back of his wallet. A phone number in England. He's been avoiding looking at it for a few months now.

Peggy was just so happy to hear from him. So happy he was alive. So eager to tell him all about her life. _Knowing you had had faith in me helped me through some hard times,_ she told him, her voice wavering a little with age and enthusiasm.

He was ashamed to realize he'd wanted her to be angry. Angry that they'd been cheated. He'd wanted--something stupid. Bittersweet regret lingering in the air, maybe, like the smell of some flower he'd read about in Southern novels. It was pretty obvious Peggy didn't feel cheated or bittersweet or regretful. She just wanted to show him pictures of her great-grandkids.

She's probably got cute great-grandkids. He dials the number. 

"Hello?"

"Peggy? It's Steve."

"Steve! How are you doing?"

"I'm okay. Hey--you still think I could come visit you for a few days?"

"I'd love to see you." She laughs. "My neighbors will be terribly jealous." She sounds like any old lady teasing a handsome young man. Steve tries not to be bothered by it. Now that he hears her voice again, he really does want to see her. "Can you afford the airfare? Planes are so expensive these days."

"Tony Stark will fly me out," he tells her.

"Oh, how is Tony? He was such a darling little boy. The spitting image of Howard."

_That's_ weird. "Darling's not the word I would use," he says ruefully. She laughs again. He likes her laugh. He never got to hear it much. She was always fighting to get taken seriously by a bunch of jerks who didn't get why a beautiful dame would want to be in the army. 

"Tell him Aunt Peggy says hello," she says, and that's even weirder.

"Yeah, I'll be sure to do that."

She laughs. "I'm so glad you're back."

He can't quite say _me too_.


End file.
